Imagine you’re working on a feature. You create a pull request with your changes and get some feedback. You update your pull request by adding another commit that addresses the feedback. Maybe you notice a typo. So you create another commit that fixes the typo. Very soon, your feature branch has a lot going on with all these commits:

So you get your PR approvals and you merge. But looking through your repository’s history, you notice that it looks busy. A lot of these commits don’t actually add any value to your repo’s history. They clutter up the blame, make bisects take longer and generally make the history hard to navigate.

Squash your commits in Bitbucket Cloud

You could always squash commits via the command line using “git merge –squash”, but this is just another time consuming step, and it would be a lot easier to have it done for you from Bitbucket. Today we’re launching the ability for Git users to squash commits in feature branches when merging pull requests.Combining these commits will provide a clean, easy-to-follow history for your repo. This new merge strategy can be found when merging a pull request:

Merge commit (–no-ff) will keep all of your commits from your feature branch, while Squash (–squash) is the new option that will allow you to combine your commits and clean up your repo.

Update on squashing commits in Mercurial

This feature rollout applies only to Git and not Mercurial… yet. Squash requires exchange of obsolescence markers – part of the evolve extension – so we’re working with Mercurial’s maintainers to get evolve bundled in core Mercurial, as well as adding support for it in Bitbucket. For developers already using the evolve extension, we hope to have a beta for squashing in Mercurial available soon.

In order to help make features like this accessible to the community in the future, including through further development of the Mercurial platform, Bitbucket is making a charitable donation to the Software Freedom Conservancy. We’re proud to support the Software Freedom Conservancy and promote the development of platforms like Mercurial, and encourage you to keep a look out for advancements to come.

Try Squash-merges

Next time you want to merge a pull request, try out the squash merge option and tell us what you think on Twitter.

If you’re new to Bitbucket, sign up for an account, import some code, add your team mates and have them review your code via a pull request. When you are ready to merge their feedback, you will find the new squash merge strategy.

Looking for more in depth information on this new feature? More information on squash merges can be found here.

Have more specific questions about this post? Reach out to us on Twitter to get the information you need. Looking for squash merges in Bitbucket Server? Merge strategies are available in Bitbucket Server 4.9.